But that may be changing. Customers appear to be catching on to the higher prices charged by competitive retailers, with more and more returning to the default price. As of April, the Bangor Daily News found, 130,546 residential competitive retail customers remained in Maine – down from a peak of around 221,000 in mid-2013.

If you spread the $32.4 million premium that these customers paid in 2015 equally across all of those customers signed up in April, they paid an extra $248 each for the year, or $20.70 per month, the local news outlet said. For the average home, using 550 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month, the difference amounted to $229 more per year.

Customers who lost money to competitive providers told the Bangor Daily News earlier this year that they weren’t even shopping for plans when they signed up. Electricity Maine, for example, began by offering savings over the standard offer, with big television and radio advertising campaigns.

Last year alone, Electricity Maine’s customers would have saved an estimated $25.8 million if they instead had taken the standard offer, the news outlet claims. After saving customers about $2.8 million in their first year and amassing hundreds of thousands of savings seekers, Electricity Maine has taken in an estimated $36.6 million premium on its sales since 2012.